A Series of Mistakes

The Third Mistake

There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there a few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be. -- Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

All thoughts of searching for money disappeared within seconds of entering the library. Brigitta wandered around the shelves, totally absorbed in examining the books. Some of them were new and looked as if they hadn't been read at all. Some were so old they were practically falling to pieces. She took a few out of the shelves and flipped through them. Many of them were in foreign languages. Of the ones she understood, about half were texts on geography, religion or history while the other half were novels.

In the middle of the library she found a reading table. A huge book sat on top of it. It was roughly as thick as Brigitta's arm was long. How the table didn't collapse beneath its weight was a mystery.

Out of curiosity she opened the book and glanced through its pages. It was in at least three different languages and apparently was some sort of encyclopaedia. She saw drawings of animals both familiar and alien, drawings of plants, lists of numbers that could only be dates, and long paragraphs written in scripts she couldn't read. She was about to close the book and move on when she found something. It was a scrap of paper placed between two pages. She opened it out and stared in confusion at the scribbles on it. It didn't look like any alphabet she'd ever seen, yet the scribbles were spaced in a way that suggested distinct words.

Brigitta turned the paper upside down. Then she realised what it was. Someone had written a message in the Humall language. But it was written backwards, as if they'd been looking in a mirror as they wrote. Now why would anyone go to so much trouble? And why hide a note in a book?

There was a large mirror on the wall behind her. Brigitta went over to it and held up the note. It took her a minute to mentally translate what it said. Never before had she been so grateful for her primary school teaching Humall in such depth. She deciphered it. Her eyebrows flew up. The note said, "Safe password is one-four-four-nine. Safe is behind mirror in spare bedroom above library."

Brigitta was not quite as stupid as her recent decisions suggested. She smelt a rat at once. Why would someone go to the trouble of writing down a safe's password and location? That was just extending an open invitation to thieves. There was something fishy about this.

She looked at the room's reflection, almost expecting to see someone behind her and laughing at her for walking into a trap. There was no one there. She read the note again.

This whole trip was one long series of bad decisions. What was one more?

~~~~

It was easier than she'd expected to find the spare bedroom in question. All she had to do was walk out of the library, climb the stairs beside its door -- she didn't remember noticing them before -- and open the door on the landing. Alarm bells went off in her mind. Nothing should be so easy in a place like this.

The furniture in the spare room was covered in dust-sheets. Its floorboards creaked ominously beneath her feet. Brigitta scurried over to the mirror as fast as she could. She tapped the glass. She poked at its sides. She tried to prise it away from the wall. Nothing worked. That mirror might as well have been cemented in place.

She was so distracted that she didn't notice a sound in the hall outside. It grew gradually louder until she couldn't avoid hearing it. An icy chill ran down her spine as she realised it was the sound of someone -- at least four someones, in fact -- marching towards the room.

The only place to hide was under the bed. She dived beneath it and prayed the dust-sheet would cover her -- or, even better, that the people would march right past the door.